SC ban on printing, airing of tapped conversation

The court then sought the views of Solicitor General G E Vahanvati and Additional Solicitor General Gopal Subramanium on the matter. Both agreed with the suggestion of Amar Singh’s counsel and senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi that in extraordinary situations like this the electronic and print media be barred from publishing or broadcasting the illegally tapped conversation.

Following this, the bench ordered that “having regard to the facts and circumstances of the case, we direct that the electronic and print media would not publish or display the illegal telephone tapping of any person till the matter is further heard and guidelines issued by this court.”

It observed that illegal tapping was a serious matter and that it would look into it and if necessary even examine the legality of sting operations.

Advancing his arguments, Rohatgi challenged the Government’s contention that the two letters, which contained requests for tapping some phones including that of Singh, were forged.

He pointed out that on 21 October 2005, the Delhi government had written to seven service providers asking them for details of phones that were being tapped by the Delhi Police outside the requisite sanction. One of the replies stated that as many as 323 phones, including Amar Singh’s, were tapped, he said and added that the size would be much bigger when the replies of all seven are received.

However, the Centre said it had not received replies from all service providers. An annoyed court then observed how the Centre could take such a plea. It directed the Centre to be ready with the records when the matter comes up for hearing next on March 20.

The bench made it clear that it wanted to know in how many cases permission for tapping was taken within stipulated 15 days after the phones were tapped and in how many cases no such permission was taken at all. Meanwhile, the court deleted the name of the Congress Party (through its president) as a respondent in the matter saying it had been unnecessarily added.

The court also issued notices to all major telecom service providers, including MTNL, VSNL, BSNL, Reliance Infocomm, Idea Cellular, Tata Indicomm, Bharti Televentures Ltd and Hutchison Essar Ltd.